


First Baton Pass

by NieRville



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: But probably ok, Disgusting James Ellroy imitation, Dude you wrote cringe, F/M, Fight Scene, Gen, Hard boiled Phantom Thieves, Old fic found on my hard drive, Others too but only mentioned, Purple Prose, Queen kicks ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NieRville/pseuds/NieRville
Summary: Queen's first baton pass with Joker. A Mementos fight scene with Makoto pining after Ren.
Relationships: Amamiya Ren/Niijima Makoto, Kurusu Akira/Niijima Makoto, Niijima Makoto/Persona 5 Protagonist
Kudos: 22





	First Baton Pass

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in late 2017 and edited it six months later. It's a stylistic experiment more than anything, an inexperienced writer trying to write a kick-ass write scene (strong influence: L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy), and pretentious. I think I was never really satisfied with it, but three years later it's not half bad so here we go. 
> 
> It's P5 vanilla, not Royal, so this was when you had to meet the Confidant once or twice to use Baton Pass. I was so excited about the two of them *touching* that I wrote this.

Queen saw the shadow from the corner of her eye, right before Joker said ”there”, and she grabbed the wheel of Monamobile even harder, punched the pedal and heard the not-cat go meow as she drove into the umbra formed from the untamed side of the human psyche. The car jolted to a halt and strange glowing matter burst out of the hulking dark mass. Queen on the left side, Joker on the right, both bust out the doors of the cabin; the back door opened with a clang and she knew that Panther and Fox were already out of there.

The car had torn open the humanoid brute and the shadows within it had rushed out and had quickly taken form. The good thing was that they were dazed; the bad thing was that it didn't last long; the best thing was that the Phantom Thieves had trained for this.

”Fire!”

At Joker's call, the eerie dead-end in Mementos burst into a confagration of fre, gunsmoke, and a noise to wake every single dead ancestor in Japan. The violent staccato that the submachine gun and the assault rife created was the rhythm to which Panther and Fox cut down the weakest shadows and kept the strongest from dispersing with a curtain of lead and vicious intent. The creatures burst into oblivion and added their dying smoke to the pandemonium of sight and sound.

Then it was the shared task of Queen and Joker to take care of the good parts.

Joker, she knew, had his pistol at the ready as soon as he exited the door. His current favorite style was to hop on to the hood of the Monamobile and shout out something stupidly dramatic even by the standards of the mangas she had read while spying on Ren — no, those that Ryuuji reads, what was she, 16? she wouldn't be caught dead reading those except Ren had and curse his blue eyes; wait, what was that? — while posing on the hood like he was about to take on the Mementos all by himself. He defed Death. Stupid boy. What was he up to? He was going to get himself killed some day soon, Queen thought.

Wait, where was his ridiculous shout now?

Queen had wasted enought time thinking already. She had her own part to fulfll and although this was her frst run in Mementos, she had practised it to near-perfection. She ran towards the shadows and dove towards the ground, right hand frst, and curved to greet the ground with a graceful ukemi.

She was especially proud that she was able to perform said ukemi with spiked shoulder pads. Her rensei should see her now. _Sensei_. Focus.

She rolled over and while rising to her knees, unholstered her Colt Peacemaker replica. She knew exactly where her enemy was. Using the sight was for amateurs and she shot from the hip, fanning the hammer, boom, boom, boom, three bullets into the head of a horned red beast, crouched in its last crouch.

But it didn't go down; he beast widened its malevolent cheekless smile and revealed even more beastly whites. It rose from its crouched position and Queen saw that it towered at least a meter above her. She had put the bullets into its head and two of them stuck above its glowing blue eyes; the last one had sent its heavy left earring dancing. It moved surprisingly fast for a three-meter tower of muscle carrying a two-meter blade of nether metal whose name Queen couldn't quite recall at that point and frankly she had bigger issues then and there than weapon trivia but what would her rensei her sensei herrensei say if he knew of her ignorance?

The creature, fortunately, was more sluggish than it had seemed, but goodness that blade was fast. Queen stepped to the side just in time — right on time, actually — and holstered her revolver, because time for making peace was over. One, two, step, punch the creature in the lower back, three, four, fve, six, and a roundhouse kick.

It laughed. It just laughed. She could see its muscles move beneath its fatty tuna haranake skin — no, that shade of skin was more like harashimo, maybe? — and the byzantium clothes. No, oh no, now she needed something better.

But she didn't have the time. The monster turned and smashed the blade right down at her. She rolled aside, but the giant swiped the weapon towards her like a paddle and she felt the ferocious blow in her whole left side. The wind left her lungs; she couldn't feel the ground beneath her anymore. And then she did, and quite a bit more painfully than she preferred.

Thud, thud, boom, it was after her. Where were the others? What was happening? She tried to stand up, but her legs were numb and formless and heavy; she could slightly lift her hip, but —

Thud, thud, the big creep crept closer. Then, a soft but audible shout.

”HEY, FATTY TUNA FACE!”

It was — Ren.

Joker. Use code names.

Even in thought: call him Ren — no! Joker. Use Joker.

She looked at the direction of the voice and the outrageous trickster leaped from the hood of the Monamobile. His black coat few behind him and seemed to carry him like the wind, and he made a fabulous ...ly risky somersault mid-air, after which he unloaded three bullets into the back of its head and landed on the Mementos subway tracks with perfect fourish — surely there had to be something wrong with it — and smirked. Why did he look at her? Look at the shadow, look at the shadow!

The shadow stopped in its tracks and the muscular neck turned its grotesque spiky head towards Joker.

”You are pesky, human”, it said, the voice a legion of sepulchral echoes.

”You are stupid, Oni. Apsaras!”

Joker touched his mask and above and behind him materialized a spirit of silken pale turquoise, sprinkled with violet and azure, that formed into a delicate fying dancer. It flew forth past the Oni to embrace Queen, and when it did, somehow it felt as if, for a while, it really embraced Makoto. She felt time slow down, and her muscles strengthen, and her resolve transform into nuclear steel.

She could have summoned Johanna then and driven the living shit — my word, what was she thinking — out of the thing, but now was the time for justice.

The blood fowing to her feet again, Queen took into a sprint and raced towards the Oni, who was baffed by what was happening and half-way turned between Joker and herself. She crashed both of her tekko to the creature's left knee and the leg instantly collapsed. Queen had been counting on that and she took a step back and drop-kicked the heck — that's more like it — out of its right knee. Her foot stayed an instant on the collapsed knee and then she kicked herself off of it to build up merciless momentum to power her roundhouse kick which she pointed at the creature's horn on the top of its head and broke it straight off. Queen landed her leg and steadied her position.

The beast growled in pain on its knees. She saw Joker gaping at the fury of — herself, Queen, and she felt a surge of violent confdence and delight and spurted towards him. Joker was again at the ready, and Queen looked him in the eye and smirked.

”It's harashimo, Joker. Haranake is too good for it.”

She slapped his hand and gave him the go. She kept her back turned to the shadow and looked over her shoulder as Joker, with a shout, called forth Jack Frost and she felt a chill running down her back and that didn't feel very bad at all but it his was voice, no of course it was the Bufu that did it. She heard a crack of ice. The creature had frozen.

Then she saw the arrogant boy running back to her and she spun around with her right foot to face him.

”All yours. Queen.” Hand on hand, brisk slap, but with a lingering gentleness in the aftertouch. How was that even possible?

And did he bow his head at the same time? In his look glimmered a tiny, but all the more luminous gem of confdence which she felt lighting up something inside her chest.

Her body tingled and she channeled the sensation to summon forth her precious rebellious Persona. Her gloves gripped the materialized handles of Johanna the apocalyptic pope and she hopped onto the radiant storm of blue forming under her. While still slightly in the air, she turned the handle and sped towards the Oni and both she and Johanna crackled with ocean blue and azure and her excitement gushed forth as a blast of blinding energy. With the final turn of the handle, Johanna accelerated with unnatural force which Queen felt as a satisfying gravity in her essence. Johanna burning with blue blasted straight into the frozen Oni who exploded into a hail of blue and red pastels and glitter.

She pulled to an instant stop. Johanna retreated back to Queen's heart and she was left standing, exhaling both from exhaustion and ecstasy. She took a look at Joker.

He combed through his hair with his crimson glove and looked at her. He didn't seem to use words to thank his teammates. His presence and satisfed smile, oddly, was enough. No wonder Ryuuji kept calling him Leader all the time.

Fox and Panther approached them from a few meters off and he heard Fox thank him with a formal ”very well done, Queen”. Ann's riotous cheer was high enough to pierce the heavens and honest enough to support all the fallen angels.

But it was Joker she was looking at, and he in turn was looking at her.

She asked, ”Do you always stand back and leave your team mates in danger?”.

”Only when I know they're better than I am.”

That took her by surprise.

”But I never leave anyone in danger. I will always watch your back.”

Her eyes wandered to his eyes and stayed there, and she wondered whether it was Queen looking at Joker or Makoto looking at Ren.

There were, she then realized, a lot of things about being a phantom thief of hearts that she didn't understand yet.


End file.
